#this is now itoshi sae estate | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

verysium · 3 months

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would a beautiful young lady like you be so generous and besprinkle me with some sae itoshi thoughts

beautiful young lady? 🤭 anon you are so sweet. and for that, i present to you a writing idea that has lingered in the back of my mind for a while now. introducing......✨rōnin sae✨

he was originally the first-born son of a wealthy samurai clan but was ostracized due to his left-handed fighting style and refusal to conform to bushido. the night of his thirteenth birthday, he wrongfully murdered a man, and for that he was exiled by his family and later banished from the estate. forced to leave everything behind, he traveled on foot to kyoto to enter into the service of the daimyō at yodo domain, but no master or dojo would accept him.

after three years, he became a wanderer, a ghost identified by nothing except the incorporeal lingering of fear he left behind. no one has ever seen his face, nor do they know his name. a pair sharp teal eyes is the last thing the unfortunate souls see before they meet their end at the tip of his blade. he slices so clean it leaves no blood, only a soft body caught between the furrows of earth, lodged into eternal sleep beneath the snow.

working part-time as a serving girl between a soba shop and a brothel, you encounter him on one of the longest days of winter, the sole customer who dares to enter between the hours of midnight and dawn. as you set down his bowl, your eyes catch onto the silk tie fastened to the hilt of his katana, a rich hue of burgundy red. he must be a member of the upper nobility, you think. you've only ever seen the color on the obi of the wealthy patrons and the entrancing eyes of the madam's geisha. you politely ask him where he bought such beautifully dyed fabric, setting down his chopsticks with a sweet smile. he stares up at you from beneath his jingasa hat, so low on his face that you cannot see his eyes. a beat of silence passes, then two.

it is blood.

his tone is quiet, deep enough to send shivers down your spine. he waits to see the horrified look on your face, the crumpling of your delicate features so that he knows when to leave, where he is not welcome. but it never comes. instead you beam, blabbering on about how you figured he was a ronin with the number of bodies he left behind, and the number of days he says he's been here. he remains silent, though you see a flicker of something beneath the brim of his hat, the color so bright you do not know if it is blue or green.

you realize who he is. and you don't care.

that is enough to get sae interested in you, at least interested enough not to kill you. most people never hear the rumors let alone fathom his existence, yet you let him stay here with you, as if you expected his presence all along. at first, he coughs and refuses, standing up swiftly to find the exit. but when he lifts the noren and is hit with a face full of harsh snow, he begins to reconsider your offer, to wait until the storm passes.

you boil tea on the kettle as you lay out a spare futon on the tatami, lighting a candle in the darkness. in the corner, he sees a small misshapen bundle beneath the blankets, and he immediately pulls his hand back when two glossy eyes peer back up at him. the bundle he realizes is your mother, and the blankets he learns is a deathbed. you have no other kin left, no money to feed yourself, nowhere to hide the rotting body. only in time will he fully understand the ghosts of your past. you are the daughter of a prostitute; he is a son in exile. it shouldn't even be considered a match, but it strangely feels like one.

the storm passes, but sae doesn't leave. instead, you and he settle into the mundane expanse of cold routine, him searching for hire by day and you working by night. except one night, you do not return home by the tenth hour bell. it isn't until the sun carves a sliver into the morning sky that he sees your silhouette in the doorway, kimono slightly rumpled. you pull the ornaments out of your hair, makeup smeared as you run frantically into your room, slumping before your wash basin.

it doesn't take much from him to pry out an entire story from your lips. apparently your friend himeko has disappeared, the last you've seen of her was her entanglement with a young nobleman who promised to buy her out of the brothel. you sigh, lamenting that you are not attractive enough to be wed, much less make your way up the ranks of the maiko. sae wants to say you are foolish for believing a man's lies, but he holds his tongue when he sees your expression, the delicate features of your face crumbling, the same way he expected them to the night you met. it is the first time he sees you cry, and he cannot even hold you. he does not know why this hurts so much.

it's too late by the time he realizes.

you've buried yourself into him. stomped your muddy footprints all over his heart. left evidence in the snow. successfully haunted him in every single iteration. now he tells you that he would wed you in a single heartbeat. any sign of discomfort and he would not hesitate to kill. his only regret is that he wished he could give you more than this life of an untethered ghost, more substance than this lack of being. but your lips quell the storm that resides in his heart, his rotting fingers trembling as they find a home on the side of your cheeks. if he were to die, he would be content to be buried inside you, his stone cold body resting within the peace of your existence.

it is the hour between midnight and dawn when sae realizes the snow outside has stopped and that his life has only just begun.

#asks #can you tell this was inspired by mizu...#sae itoshi #sae itoshi x you #sae itoshi x reader #sae itoshi x y/n

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